Alex

by on February 17, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Character Profiles

Alex wanted nothing to do with me the day I brought Julie over to Alex’s house. But I got Julie to pull up her shirt to show Alex the bruises. I told Alex that Julie couldn’t live with her father anymore. I still remember the look of hatred she aimed at me in that moment. They were first cousins, and an abusive uncle would hit every scandal rag if she followed her dreams into the talking head networks. She would be pigeonholed into every parental abuse media panel. She would be the face of abuse on the networks. She wanted more than that. So much more. I was destroying her future by bringing this into her life. Then Alex looked back to Julie and the hatred melted away in favor of compassion and love. She welcomed Julie in to tell her mom, and when Julie made it clear that I was coming in too, Alex gave me just one exasperated smile and nodded me in. Some people say that people can’t change. I know the truth. I saw Alex change before my very eyes in that moment, and I will never forget it.

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Lucas Cats

by on February 16, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Races of Humanity

The tiger-derived Laohu of San Lucas grew up as slaves under the mountain of the gods of Hankou. Then humanity arrived and our flames came down from the sky instead of up from the mountain. The Laohu saw in those fires new gods that might shine down on them with more favor than the gods of the mountain. It seemed like an answer to prayers when their masters began to fight amongst themselves. Then the Laohu took the matter in their own claws and added to the chaos with a full-scale rebellion. The twin fires of religious war and a slave rebellion raged across Hankou until the mountain of the gods awoke and buried those who had failed them under burning lava. Or so the followers of the new gods explained it. Then they fled into the lower mountains and foothills in an effort to stay ahead of the lava coming from the mountain. Their former masters followed them, and the wars redoubled over the vanishing resources and land that remained as the world burned to an end around them.

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The Gateway Run

by on February 15, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Essential Galactic Atlas

The first Gateway Run passed through twelve star systems. Alcyone is approximately three hundred and seventy lightyears from Earth, but we traveled nearly six hundred lightyears on the crisscrossing route we were forced to use. A War Era American warship with a top-of-the-line hyperdrive could maintain an average effective speed of over fifteen hundred times the speed of light, and make the entire trip in as few as one hundred thirty or forty days. Assuming ideal hyperspace conditions. Hyperspace is never ideal, so it was not uncommon for transits to take one hundred fifty, or even two hundred days. Slower civilian transports could take a year or more to travel that route, one way. But that represented the best we could do at the time, and many smaller transport corporations made their entire living by sending ships into Peloran space and bringing back anything they were willing to trade with us. One never knew what minor knickknack the Peloran had forgotten was important and hung on a wall because it was pretty. We revolutionized entire fields of manufacturing and science on the back of those knickknacks. And most of them came to Earth on The Gateway Run.

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Alex

by on February 14, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Character Profiles

Alex was one of those popular girls when I was young. She already had her life mapped out and ready to execute. She was going to an Ivy League ones, so she was taking all the socially high-minded classes. Then she was going to be a lawyer. Or a politician. One of those get-rich-quick positions, followed by a lifetime of appearing on news shows and talking about the latest scandal the media wanted us to care about. And considering how far the background checks can go for positions like that, she couldn’t afford to be hanging out with a do-nothing slacker like me. A single scandal could take her whole future away, so she never gave me the time of day. I still remember the day I brought Julie over to Alex’s house. Alex gave me one disgusted look and told me to leave. Julie wouldn’t let me go, though. Alex said I was bad news. I would drag her down. She said a lot more, and not all of it was printable in polite company. The thing is, she was right about me.

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Lucas Cats

by on February 13, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Races of Humanity

The lion-derived Toshi of San Lucas ruled the Hankou continent under the mountain of the gods’ watchful eyes. They were glorious and powerful, serving the greatest gods in the universe. Then the fires of our arrival burned in the heavens. We did not come from the mountain, as previous fires had. We came from the skies, and that shook their beliefs to the foundations. People questioned the power of the mountain gods, and a full-scale religious war erupted throughout Toshi society. They fought with words at first, then snarls and claws, and finally with far more dangerous weapons. Their slaves took the opportunity to rebel as well, and Toshi society was soon beset on all sides with chaos and change. Religious and rebellious violence waged across the continent for decades. Then the mountain of the gods awoke once more and buried all who doubted the true gods under burning lava. Or so the faithful explained it. Faithful and unfaithful alike fled to the highlands to escape the lava, and they fought even harder for the scarce resources and land up there. It was the end of the world as they knew it.

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